Don’t look now, but UK PV installation figures are out

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Mark Osborne

Mark Osborne is currently the Senior News Editor for Photovoltaics International and PV-Tech website. He has launched multiple technology titles in print and online covering manufacturing in the automotive, shipping, semiconductor and solar sectors in a publishing career spanning three decades. Mark started blogging in 2005, the first technology editor to do so and has worked online since 1996. A veteran manufacturing technology journalist and editor, Mark has been responsible for a series of innovative formats for delivering technical content to an engineering-based audience.

If you thought Italian PV installation figures looked crazy, then you haven’t seen the UK’s! The database run by Ofgem, the UK agency that logs and reports PV installations in the UK, has been experiencing a few problems. The system is not functioning correctly and is showing a not-too-insignificant 47GW having been installed in January alone! Yes, that’s right, 47GW.

The problem and hopefully the solution are detailed in this blog written by Emma Hughes, Editor of the Solar Power Portal, PV-Tech's UK-dedicated sister website.

This wouldn’t happen in Germany, would it? Though at least the UK is being transparent with installation figures, compared to the likes of France and the Czech Republic.

The UK has also launched a public website that shows by postcode with maps where all the crimes in the UK are being committed. I remember seeing television reports highlighting the website would go live the next day and thinking to myself that it would be so inundated with visitors that I doubt it would be functioning for long before crashing.

Yesterday, to no surprise to me, news stories highlighted that it did indeed crash and they were sorting out the problem. Of course, they didn’t have the foresight to realise that this was 100% inevitable. Ho hum…

Now that the PV industry has unquestionably entered a new growth phase, all eyes are on which technologies will win through into the mainstream of PV manufacturing. PERC, n-type, p-type bifacial, heterojunction – all have become familiar terms in the ever-growing constellation of solar cell technologies. The question is which will offer manufacturers what they are looking for in improving efficiencies and cutting costs.

Although the past few years have proved extremely testing for PV equipment manufacturers, falling module prices have driven solar end-market demand to previously unseen levels. That demand is now starting to be felt by manufacturers, to the extent that leading companies are starting to talk about serious capacity expansions later this year and into 2015. This means that the next 12 months will be a critical period if companies throughout the supply chain are to take full advantage of the PV industry’s next growth phase.